Files attached to electronic mail (“email”) present several drawbacks. Email attachments are often large files and tend to overload user's mailboxes. Large files often slow down email replication on low speed links (e.g., dial-up or wireless GSM connections) and thereby increase the time to get all the email replicated locally. Uncompressed attachment files increase this drawback. Furthermore, all recipients of an email with a large attachment will have this file in their mailbox (e.g., on a local hard disk). This proliferates the large file and may cause massive amounts of memory to be used if the same file is distributed to multiple users. User's mailbox size is usually limited and emails with large files attached thereto create a need to manage emails and archive very often. In addition, email attachments may not be secure, e.g., the files may include viruses or contain forbidden data. All Internet Service Providers (“ISPs”), email users and associated servers face this problem. A need exists to handle email attachments more effectively.